An officer gives the order, and the cart gusts forward, as though propelled by the din of the spectators. Cobble by cobble we pass, the crowd parting only to close round us again-through the Quai aux Fleurs (a discombobulating smell of roses), over the Pont-au-Change, along the Quai de Gesvres.

Strange that, in this moment, all I can think of are other people's heads. Popping from doorways and windows. Peering out from behind lampposts and storefronts. Gazing down on us with a furious lust.

Next to me, Father Montes raises his crucifix and intones . . . something . . . it might be Latin, it might be Carpathian. The hubbub drowns out all the other sounds, and the only thing that breaks through to me, finally, is a jolt: Charles' head, jostled onto my shoulder.

I stare into his white, white face. A tiny f licker round the eyelids. A palpitation of the lower lip. Not much more.

He' ll die, I think. Before they even get round to killing him.

And once more, I find myself wishing my father could be here. Or Vidocq. But the first of them is long dead, and the other soon will be. And in another ten minutes, I'll be joining them.

"Charles."

My legs and hands are bound. The only way to rouse him is with my voice.

"Charles, can you hear me? "

I feel it rather than hear it: the breath passing through his lips.

"I need you to look at me. Right into my eyes, can you do that?"

The lids widen, the pupils dance in their sockets.

"We're going on an outing," I tell him. "It'll be great fun."

"No," he murmurs. "Rain . . ."

Rain, yes, battening his lids back down, trickling down his chin like drool.

"Forget the rain," I say. "Forget everything, can you do that? Just look into my eyes. Charles, you must do this for me."

Several more seconds pass before his pupils lock into focus.

"Good. That's good. Now just keep looking. That's all you have to do."

The cart rolls on and on, past rows of shops, past walls of faces. Laughs and jeers . . . boots stamping in mud . . . children swinging from shop signs . . . we notice none of it. There is a dire intimacy to us now, as if we were soldiers in a surrounded redoubt.

At length, a measure of color returns to his face. The breath begins to stream at regular intervals. The back of his eye pulses with light.

And then the cart grinds to a stop.

"Bear it bravely," says Father Montes, shoving the crucifix toward me.

He's hoping I'll kiss it before I go, but I'm too caught up by the sight of Charles, being dragged down a stepladder. And the sight of this scaffold: iron, wood, and ropes. And looming above it, that familiar triangle of steel. Old Growler. The Widowmaker.

"Had it waxed just this morning," Sanson reassures us.

I glance toward the great clock face on the facade of the Hotel de Ville. Two minutes till four o'clock, and every possible vantage has been seized. Tables and chairs have been rented for the occasion. Gamins hang from chimneys and window bars, calling down insults. Just below the platform, two men have stationed themselves with bowls for catching the blood.

This is what I've saved Charles for.

He has to be dragged up the steps, but once he's atop the scaffold, he's able somehow to walk the last few steps unaided-and with a serenity quite astonishing in the circumstances. The onlookers roar their approval.

"There's a man for you! Not a tremor! "

"Brave bugger, isn't he?"

One woman, quite young and fair, blows Charles kisses. Her face is contorted with weeping. She' ll write a novel about him, I think. A bad one.

"Take me first! " I yell up to Sanson. "I want to go first! "

"Rules are rules."

Two gendarmes lay Charles down on the swinging plank, f lat on his stomach. From the crowd, a low keening hum of pleasure begins to well, ascending in pitch and volume with each stage in the ritual: right leg bound, left leg bound. Mmmm . . . Mmmmmmmm . . .